Will a Man Rob God?

The page in six sentences — for anyone skimming

1 · The tithe was food, and it fed the poorThe Old Testament tithe was a tenth of crops and flocks. It fed the Levites, was eaten by the worshipper’s own household at the feasts, and every third year was laid up “within thy gates” for “the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow” (Deuteronomy 14:28–29).

2 · Malachi’s storehouse was the temple’s“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house” (Malachi 3:10). The storehouse was the store-chambers of the Jerusalem temple (Nehemiah 13:12). Two verses earlier, God names those who oppress “the widow, and the fatherless.”

3 · Jesus spoke of tithing to men under the lawHe told the scribes and Pharisees they ought to tithe “and not to leave the other undone” (Matthew 23:23). He said it before the cross, to men bound by Moses, and the point of the sentence is what they had left undone: “judgment, mercy, and faith.”

4 · The first weekly collection was for the poor“Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him” (1 Corinthians 16:2). It was for “the poor saints which are at Jerusalem” (Romans 15:26). No New Testament text names a percentage.

5 · The early Church gave freely, and to the poorJustin Martyr, about 155: “they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit,” and it relieves orphans, widows, the sick, prisoners and strangers. Tertullian, 197: “there is no compulsion; all is voluntary.”

6 · Ministers are to be paid, and the poor are not second“The labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:18). Scripture commands both. No text in either Testament ranks the poor after a congregation’s share, and no tradition this page could find did so before the modern “storehouse” rule.

The question

What this page is asking

The author of this site set down a thesis to be tested: “The New Testament never commands a 10% tithe to the ‘home’ church, and Scripture never puts the needy at the back of the line.”

He described the teaching he had in mind like this. Christians must give ten per cent of their income, the tithe, to their “home” church. Only giving above that ten per cent may go to other causes, including the poor. Failing to tithe is “robbing God,” and brings a curse (Malachi 3:8–9). The teaching, he observed, makes three claims:

Claim 1The tithe binds Christians. A tenth of income is owed, not offered.

Claim 2It belongs to the local congregation, which is God’s “storehouse.”

Claim 3The needy come from what is left over. Only giving above the tenth may go to the poor.

Against this he set his core claim. The New Testament does teach generous, regular, proportional giving, and it does say ministers should be supported. But it never commands a tithe of the Church. It never names the local church as the storehouse. And the earliest record of Christian giving puts the poor at the centre of the collection, not after it. Even in the Old Testament, the tithe itself was partly for “the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow.”

He put the question in a form that can be checked: Does the New Testament require Christians to give a tithe, and to give it to their local church? Does Scripture or the historic Church teach that care for the poor comes only after the church’s share? Is “robbing God” in Malachi 3 a warning to Christians today? What did the apostles and the early Church actually teach and practise about giving?

He asked for the strongest case for the tithe to be presented first, fairly, before anything is tested. Part I does that.

Two ways of giving, labelled so they can be told apart

The page compares two accounts of what Christians owe and where it goes. They are given letters so that it can refer to them briefly.

Position G · held by this page

Grace-givingChristian giving answers the grace of Christ, who “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor” (2 Corinthians 8:9). It is regular, proportional (“as God hath prospered him”), generous and uncompelled. It supports those who teach the Word, and it cares for the poor near and far, as one duty and not two in a queue. It is handled openly. Scripture sets no percentage, so no one may impose one as God’s law, and no one may forbid one either.

Position S · under test

The Storehouse titheA tenth of income is owed to God by every Christian, by a law older than Moses and confirmed by Jesus. The local congregation is God’s storehouse, so the whole tenth goes there first. Offerings to anything else, the poor included, come only from what a believer gives above the tenth. To withhold the tenth is to rob God and to stand under Malachi’s curse.

Position S is a real teaching, held in published form by at least one denomination (Part IX) and preached far more widely than it is written down. Position G is not a licence to give little. The page will show that the early Church measured its giving against the tithe and usually found the tithe too small.

What both sides agree on

Christians should giveRegularly, generously and in proportion to what they have. Nobody on either side is defending stinginess. “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6).

Ministers should be paid“Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14). A congregation that starves its pastor is disobeying Scripture.

A congregation has real costsBuildings, heating, staff, teaching, missions. Someone has to pay for them, and the people who use them are the obvious people to do it.

Many churches serve the poorA great deal of real help for the needy goes out through congregations’ own budgets: food banks, benevolence funds, relief work. Giving to a church is often giving to the poor.

So the disagreement is not about whether to give, or whether to support the church. It is about three narrower things: whether a fixed tenth is God’s law for Christians, whether the local congregation is the only place it may go, and whether the poor must wait until it has been paid.

“Tithe,” “storehouse,” “first fruits,” “alms” and “storehouse tithing,” as used on this pageA tithe is a tenth (the Old English teotha). In the Old Testament it was a tenth of the produce of the land and of the herds and flocks. The storehouse in Malachi 3:10 is the Hebrew bêt hā’ôṣār, literally “the house of the treasury,” the store-chambers attached to the temple in Jerusalem. First fruits are the first part of a harvest or a batch of bread, offered to God; in the Old Testament they were a separate gift from the tithe, and the early Church used the word for gifts of every kind. Alms are gifts to the poor (from the Greek eleēmosynē, mercy). Storehouse tithing is the name of the modern rule that the whole tenth belongs to the local congregation before any other giving.

The thesis under test

That the Old Testament tithe was produce, given for the Levites, for a festival meal and for the poor, and does not match “ten per cent of gross income to the church” (Leviticus 27; Numbers 18; Deuteronomy 14 and 26). That Malachi’s storehouse was the temple’s, and its curse belonged to the covenant of Sinai (Malachi 3; Nehemiah 10 and 13; Galatians 3:13). That Jesus’ words on tithing were spoken to men under the law, and point past the tithe to “judgment, mercy, and faith” (Matthew 23:23). That the New Testament teaches regular, proportional, uncompelled giving, sets no percentage, and puts the poor at its centre (1 Corinthians 16; 2 Corinthians 8–9; Galatians 2:10; Acts 2, 4, 6 and 11). That ministers are to be supported, without any rule that their support comes before the poor (1 Corinthians 9; Galatians 6:6; 1 Timothy 5). That Scripture expects openness from those who handle the money (2 Corinthians 8:19–21). That the early Church gave freely and spent first on the poor; that the compulsory tithe was a later church law, from 585 onwards; and that “storehouse tithing” is modern. And that no tradition the page could find, before that modern rule, taught that the poor are to be helped only from what is left after the tithe.

The scope of this page, stated narrowly

This page tests one teaching: that a tenth is owed to the local church, and that the poor come after it. It does not tell anyone how much to give, or where. It does not argue that tithing is wrong; a Christian who freely gives a tenth, or more, to his congregation is doing nothing the New Testament forbids. It does not assess any particular church’s finances or any particular person’s giving. It does not adjudicate between the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant accounts of church law. Several threads have had a dossier of their own, and here they are kept brief and linked: the giver’s responsibility once he has given (08), the prosperity gospel as an account with God (38), Ananias and Sapphira (46), and what a church owes the people it pays (49). Objections are answered inside each Part, under the heading “The objection.”

What the page concludes, stated up front

The case for the tithe is stronger than its critics often allow. Abraham tithed before Moses, Jesus approved the Pharisees’ tithing, Paul ties the minister’s pay to the temple’s, and many Fathers urged a tenth. Every point is real. Part I.
The Old Testament tithe was food, and the poor were built into it. A tenth of crops and flocks, given to the Levites, eaten by the household at the feasts, and in the third year laid up in the towns for the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. “Ten per cent of gross pay to the church” matches none of these. Part II.
Malachi’s storehouse was the temple, and his curse was the curse of Sinai. The same chapter condemns those who oppress the widow and the fatherless. A congregation is not the temple’s store-chambers, and “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). Part III.
Jesus spoke of tithing to men under the law, and pointed past it. The tithing Pharisee went home unjustified; the scribes who “devour widows’ houses” are condemned in the verse before the widow’s mites; and Corban is the shape of a gift to God used to withhold what is owed to people. Part IV.
The New Testament sets no percentage, and its first weekly collection was for the poor. Every passage on giving measures it by ability, willingness and need. Part V.
Scripture puts the needy at the heart of religion, not at the back of the line. James 1:27, 1 John 3:17 and Matthew 25. No text tells Christians to meet the church’s share first. Part VI.
Scripture expects the handlers of money to be open, and ministers to be paid without becoming lovers of money. Paul refused his own right to support and had the collection escorted by delegates the churches chose. Part VII.
The early Church gave freely and spent first on the poor; the compulsory tithe came later. The Didache, Justin and Tertullian; the Fathers who urged a tenth as a minimum; the fourfold division with a quarter for the poor; Mâcon in 585, Charlemagne and the English tithe until 1977; Luther and the common chest. Part VIII.
“Storehouse tithing” is a modern rule. It was promoted in American Protestantism from the 1870s, and it is written into at least one denomination’s manual today. Others set no percentage at all. Part IX.
A picture of New Testament giving can be described without being prescribed. Grace first, then regular, proportional, generous and cheerful giving, to teachers and to the poor together, handled honestly. Part X.
The narrow point is narrow. It shows that the tithe-first, poor-after rule has no warrant in Scripture or the historic Church. It does not show that tithing is wrong, or that any church that teaches it is dishonest. Part XI.

Where this page standsMy own view, offered as opinion: I have no quarrel with a Christian who gives a tenth to his church. Many of the most generous people I know do exactly that, and more besides. My quarrel is with a rule that tells a believer standing in front of a hungry neighbour that his first duty is to the congregation’s budget, and that only his surplus may go to the man in front of him. I cannot find that rule in Scripture, and I cannot find any century of the Church before the last one or two that taught it. What I find instead is a Church that took up its first weekly collection for the poor, sent its first relief to another city, appointed its first officers to feed widows, and was held up by a pagan emperor as a reproach to his own priests because it fed the pagans’ poor as well as its own. That is the inheritance I would want a congregation to claim. You may weigh the evidence differently, and this page has tried to give you everything you need to do so.

A note on scope and method. No living individual is named on this page as an example of anything, and no congregation is identified. Denominations are quoted only in their own published doctrinal and governing documents, word for word and with the edition given; quoting a document is not a judgement on any congregation that uses it, and every denomination quoted also supports relief of the poor through its own channels. Every remark attributed to a pastor or church member is composed by the page and labelled as composed. Deceased writers are quoted from dated, published works. Scripture is quoted from the Authorised Version. Evaluative conclusions are labelled as opinion and rest on facts disclosed on the page. Nothing here is financial or legal advice.

Reproducibility

The prompt behind this page

Everything below was produced by giving the following brief to a frontier language model with web search, which assembled and checked the sources. It is published so you can run it yourself, change it, sharpen it, or reverse it and see what comes back. Three experiments are worth more than reading this page. First, reverse it: ask for the strongest case that the tithe binds Christians and belongs to the local church, and see which texts it rests on and how it reads them in context. Second, narrow it: give it your own church’s published teaching on giving, and ask which of the three claims it makes. Third, widen it: ask how the Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed churches each teach Christians to give today, in their own documents.

Write a detailed, source-first, interactive article, in British
English, for a general reader who is willing to work. Quote Scripture
from the Authorised Version. Date and attribute every other
quotation: give the work, the edition or translation, and the
section. Verify every quotation against a reliable published source;
where a quotation cannot be verified, cut it, or say that it is
given at second hand. Do not invent quotes. Do not take verses out
of context.

  WORKING TITLE. Will a Man Rob God? (Propose a title that will
  resonate with readers.)

  THESIS TO TEST. The New Testament never commands a 10% tithe to
  the "home" church, and Scripture never puts the needy at the
  back of the line.

  CORE CLAIM. A teaching heard in many modern churches goes like
  this. Christians must give 10% of their income, the tithe, to
  their "home" church. Only giving above that 10% may go to other
  causes, including the poor. Failing to tithe is "robbing God" and
  brings a curse (Malachi 3:8-9). The teaching makes three claims.
  The tithe is binding on Christians. It belongs to the local
  congregation as God's "storehouse." The needy come only from what
  is left over. The New Testament does teach generous, regular,
  proportional giving, and it does say ministers should be
  supported. But it never commands a tithe of the Church. It never
  names the local church as the storehouse. And the earliest record
  of Christian giving puts the poor at the center of the
  collection, not after it. Even in the Old Testament, the tithe
  itself was partly for "the sojourner, the fatherless, and the
  widow."

  QUESTION TO TEST. Does the New Testament require Christians to
  give a tithe, and to give it to their local church? Does
  Scripture or the historic Church teach that care for the poor
  comes only after the church's share? Is "robbing God" in Malachi
  3 a warning to Christians today? What did the apostles and the
  early Church actually teach and practice about giving?

  POINTS TO TEST.
   1. The strongest case for the tithe mandate, first. Abraham gave
      Melchizedek "a tenth of everything" (Genesis 14:20) before the
      law of Moses, so some argue the tithe is older than the law
      and binding beyond it. Jesus told the Pharisees they should
      tithe "without neglecting the others" (Matthew 23:23). Hebrews
      7 builds an argument on Abraham's tithe. "The Lord commanded
      that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by
      the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:14). "Let the one who is taught
      the word share all good things with the one who teaches"
      (Galatians 6:6). Several Church Fathers urged Christians to
      give at least a tithe. A local church does have real costs,
      and many churches help the poor through their own budgets.
      Present all of this fairly, then test each point in context.
   2. What the Old Testament tithe actually was. A tenth of crops
      and livestock (Leviticus 27:30-32). It went to the Levites,
      who had no land inheritance, in return for their service
      (Numbers 18:21-24). There was a tithe the worshiper and his
      household ate in celebration before the LORD (Deuteronomy
      14:22-27). Every third year the tithe was stored "within your
      towns" for "the Levite... the sojourner, the fatherless, and
      the widow" (Deuteronomy 14:28-29; 26:12-13). Later Jewish
      sources speak of more than one tithe (Tobit 1:6-8; Josephus;
      verify). Ask readers whether the modern "10% of gross income
      to the church" matches any of these, and notice that the poor
      were built into the tithe itself.
   3. Malachi 3 in context. "Will man rob God?... In your tithes and
      contributions. You are cursed with a curse" (3:8-9). "Bring
      the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in
      my house" (3:10). The storehouse was the storerooms of the
      Jerusalem temple, which fed the Levites and priests (Nehemiah
      10:38-39; 13:10-12). The same passage warns against those
      "who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the
      fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner"
      (3:5). Is a local congregation today the temple storehouse?
      Can a curse under the covenant of Sinai be placed on
      Christians in light of Galatians 3:13? Connect to the earlier
      article on the prosperity gospel, which covers promises of a
      material return.
   4. What Jesus said about tithing. Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42,
      spoken to scribes and Pharisees still under the law before
      the cross: tithing "mint and dill and cumin" while neglecting
      "justice and mercy and faithfulness." The Pharisee who boasts
      "I give tithes of all that I get" goes home unjustified (Luke
      18:12-14). Jesus condemns the scribes who "devour widows'
      houses" (Mark 12:40) right before praising the widow who
      gives her last two coins (12:41-44). Ask readers to consider
      the order of the scene. Examine Corban (Mark 7:9-13): a gift
      dedicated to God used as a reason to withhold support owed to
      one's parents. Does "the church comes first, the needy get
      the leftovers" have the same shape?
   5. What the New Testament actually teaches about giving. The
      first instruction for regular weekly giving is for the poor
      in another city (1 Corinthians 16:1-3; Romans 15:26). Giving
      is "according to what a person has" (2 Corinthians 8:12).
      "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not
      reluctantly or under compulsion" (2 Corinthians 9:7).
      "Remember the poor" (Galatians 2:10). Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-35;
      6:1-6; 11:29-30. No percentage is ever given; ask why.
      Ministers are to be supported (1 Corinthians 9:14; 1 Timothy
      5:17-18) without any rule that their support comes before the
      poor.
   6. Pure religion and the needy. James 1:27; 1 John 3:17; Matthew
      25:31-46; Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8). Where does Scripture rank
      care for the needy against support for a congregation's
      budget? Is there any text that tells Christians to meet the
      church's share first?
   7. Money, ministers, and accountability. Paul refused his right
      to support (1 Corinthians 9:12, 15); worked with his own hands
      and "coveted no one's silver or gold" (Acts 20:33-35; 2
      Thessalonians 3:8-9); arranged church-appointed delegates to
      travel with the collection (2 Corinthians 8:19-21). Elders
      not "lovers of money"; not "for shameful gain" (1 Timothy
      3:3; 1 Peter 5:2). What accountability does Scripture expect,
      and is teaching a mandatory tithe to the home church
      consistent with it?
   8. What the historic Church taught and practiced. Didache 13
      (first fruits to the prophets; "if you have no prophet, give
      them to the poor"). Justin Martyr, First Apology 67. Tertullian,
      Apology 39 ("no one is compelled"). Irenaeus, Against Heresies
      4.13.3 and 4.18.2 (verify). The Fathers who did urge tithing,
      including the Apostolic Constitutions, Jerome and Augustine
      (verify). The fourfold division of church income from the
      fifth century: bishop, clergy, poor, upkeep (Popes Simplicius
      and Gelasius; verify). The Council of Macon (585) and
      Charlemagne's laws, which made the tithe a compulsory church
      tax; tithe law in England into the twentieth century. Luther,
      How Christians Should Regard Moses (1525), and the Leisnig
      Ordinance of a Common Chest (1523). When the modern
      "storehouse tithing" teaching arose (verify). The Catholic
      Catechism, CCC 2043. Did any of these traditions teach that
      the poor are to be helped only from what is left after the
      tithe?
   9. A positive picture of New Testament giving, described, not
      prescribed. Giving as a response to grace (2 Corinthians 8:9):
      regular, proportional, generous, cheerful, uncompelled;
      supporting those who teach the Word and caring for the poor,
      near and far; handled honestly and openly. Let readers draw
      their own conclusions about what to give and where. Offer an
      interactive exercise: readers test the statement "only giving
      above 10% may go to the needy" against each passage and source
      and record what they find.

OBJECTIONS. Present the case for the tithe mandate first, at full
strength, in its own Part. Answer other objections inside the
argument, where each one arises. Where the evidence corrects or
qualifies the brief, say so in a marked box.

POSITIONS. Two labelled positions: G, Grace-giving (held), and S,
the Storehouse tithe (under test).

NAMING. No living individual named as an example. Denominations
and organisations may be named only when quoted verbatim from their
own published doctrinal or governing documents. Everyday examples
composed and labelled as composed. Deceased writers quoted from
dated, published works.

INTERACTIVES. A priors quiz. The case for the tithe, weighed by the
reader before it is tested. The three tithes followed through a
seven-year cycle. Malachi 3 phrase by phrase. The order of the
scene in Mark 12. A hunt for a percentage in the New Testament.
Texts sorted by where they place the poor. A filterable timeline of
church practice. Denominational statements predicted before they
are read. The statement "only giving above 10% may go to the needy"
tested against every source. An objection drill the reader answers
first. Claims sorted by whether the argument proves them.

OUTPUT: a single self-contained interactive HTML page, professional
and readable, light theme by default with a dark switch, stating the
question at the top, publishing this prompt in full, repeating the
key points in prominent boxes for readers who skim, explaining every
technical term in a box where it is used, and giving the reader
something to do in every major section. Also produce a plain-English
quick version of about fifteen minutes with three short exercises,
and a Simple English version with no exercises.

The page you are reading is the output of that brief after the sources were checked. The brief quoted Scripture from a modern version; the page gives it from the Authorised Version, as it does everywhere on this site. Ten things qualified the brief, and each is marked where it arises.

Where the evidence corrects or qualifies the brief

1. The Authorised Version’s wording differs. Malachi 3:8 reads “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.” Matthew 23:23 reads “these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” 2 Corinthians 9:7 reads “not grudgingly, or of necessity.” The meaning is the same. Throughout.

2. Malachi’s accusation is aimed at “this whole nation,” and at its priests first. The same book has already indicted the priests for despising God’s table (Malachi 1:6–2:9). The robbery is national and covenantal, which matters for whom it can be applied to. Part III.

3. Matthew 23:23 is part of a chapter that also tells the crowd to obey “Moses’ seat.” Jesus’ approval of the Pharisees’ tithing sits beside his approval of their authority to teach the law (23:2–3). The page treats both the same way. Part IV.

4. Didache 13 speaks of first fruits, not of a tithe. It never mentions a tenth. That strengthens the brief’s point, since the Church’s earliest manual replaced a fixed fraction with “as it may seem good to you.” Part VIII.

5. The Apostolic Constitutions cut both ways. This fourth-century church order does urge tithes, and assigns them to the bishop to administer. But in Book VII it also says: “You shall give the tenth of your increase to the orphan, and to the widow, and to the poor, and to the stranger.” The Father most often cited for the tithe sends it to the poor. Part VIII.

6. Augustine’s “tenth” is a floor, and it went to the common treasury. In his exposition of Psalm 147 he says “a tenth if you choose, though that is but little,” because the Pharisees gave as much and Christians must exceed them. He neither commands the tenth nor ranks the poor after it. Part VIII.

7. Jerome’s wording could not be checked online. His commentary on Malachi (about 406) does apply the tithe to Christians, and does call them to more than the tithe. Because the page could not verify a translation of the passage, it summarises Jerome rather than quoting him. Part VIII.

8. The fourfold division is best attested through Gregory the Great. Simplicius (475) and Gelasius (494) are cited for the rule in standard reference works, but the clearest text a reader can check is Gregory’s letter of 601 to Augustine of Canterbury, preserved by Bede. Part VIII.

9. Luther praised the tithe, as civil law. In How Christians Should Regard Moses (1525) he says “Moses is dead,” and in the same sermon calls tithing “a very fine rule.” He meant a prince might borrow it as a fair tax, not that God commands it of Christians. Part VIII.

10. The brief’s dating of “storehouse tithing” holds. The organised campaign for the tithe in American Protestantism dates from the 1870s; a 1903 tract already calls the Church “the modern storehouse”; a book titled Storehouse Tithing appeared in 1922. At least one denomination writes the rule into its manual today, and its own words are quoted. Part IX.

Before you read

What do you currently think?

Ten questions. Each has a determinate answer, and you can check every one yourself in the texts listed in Part XIII. Answer them before reading and lock them in. They come back in Part XII with the sources beside them.

0 of 10 answered

Contents

What follows

Part I · The other side, first

The case for the tithe

And he gave him tithes of all.Genesis 14:20

The author asked for the case for the tithe mandate to be put first, at full strength, and fairly. Here it is, in eight arguments, as its best defenders would make them. Nothing in this Part is a straw man. Several of these arguments have been made by serious Christians in every century, and some of them are right about more than their critics admit.

Argument 1 Older than Moses

Abram gave Melchizedek, “the priest of the most high God,” a tenth of all (Genesis 14:18–20). Jacob vowed at Bethel, “of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee” (Genesis 28:22). Both happened centuries before the law of Moses. So the tithe is not a ceremonial law that ended with the temple. It is a pattern of worship that came before the law, and it should outlast it, as the Sabbath principle and marriage did.

Argument 2 Hebrews 7

The writer to the Hebrews builds an argument on Abraham’s tithe, and he says something striking: “here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth” (Hebrews 7:8). Christ is “a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (7:17). If Melchizedek received tithes, then the greater priest, who lives for ever, still does.

Argument 3 Jesus approved it

Jesus did not abolish tithing. He told the scribes and Pharisees that they tithed mint, anise and cummin but had omitted judgement, mercy and faith, and then he added: “these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone” (Matthew 23:23; Luke 11:42). The tithe was one of the things they ought to have done. Jesus never said the same of animal sacrifice.

Argument 4 “Even so hath the Lord ordained”

Paul ties the pay of Christian ministers directly to the temple system: “Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:13–14). The temple’s ministers lived on the tithe. “Even so” means the same arrangement carries over.

Argument 5 The teacher’s share

“Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things” (Galatians 6:6). The obligation runs to the person who teaches you, that is, to your own congregation’s ministry. Giving elsewhere while your own teachers go short reverses Paul’s order.

Argument 6 God’s own words

“All the tithe of the land … is the LORD’s: it is holy unto the LORD” (Leviticus 27:30). The tenth was never the worshipper’s to give; it already belonged to God. That is why withholding it is called robbery in Malachi 3:8, and why God says, uniquely, “prove me now herewith” (3:10). A principle of God’s ownership does not expire.

Argument 7 The Fathers urged it

Jesus said, “except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). The Pharisees tithed. So Christians should give at least a tenth. Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine and the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions all urged the tithe, and the Church made it law from the sixth century.

Argument 8 Practical wisdom

A congregation has real costs and real people depending on it. Many churches help the poor through their own budgets, with more care and better judgement than a scattered donor could. Giving through the church is accountable; giving wherever one feels led is not. And a simple, fixed rule protects a believer from the endless self-deception of “I give what I can.”

Try it: weigh the case before it is tested

For each argument, say how convinced you are now. There are no right answers here; the page records nothing, and your answers come back in Part XII beside what the rest of the page found.

0 of 8 weighed

Where each argument is tested

1 Older than Moses	Part II and Part IV: what Abram tithed, and what he did with the other nine-tenths.
2 Hebrews 7	Part IV: what the writer is proving, and what he says happens to the law of tithes.
3 Jesus approved it	Part IV: to whom, when, and what the sentence is about.
4 “Even so”	Part VII: what “even so” carries over, and what Paul did with the right it gave him.
5 The teacher’s share	Parts V and VII: what Galatians 6 says next.
6 God’s own words	Parts II and III: whose tithe, and whose storehouse.
7 The Fathers urged it	Part VIII: what they urged, why, and where they sent it.
8 Practical wisdom	Parts VI, VII and XI: granted in part, and where it stops.

The point of Part I

The case for the tithe is not foolish. Abraham did tithe before Moses; Jesus did say the Pharisees ought to tithe; Paul does compare ministers to the temple’s priests; many Fathers did urge a tenth. The question is not whether these facts are real. It is whether, read in context, they add up to the three claims of Position S.

Part II · The Old Testament

What the tithe actually was

And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied.Deuteronomy 14:29

Before asking whether the tithe binds Christians, it is worth asking what the tithe was. The law of Moses describes it in four places, and they do not describe a single payment to a single place.

What was tithed“All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD’s … And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the LORD.”Leviticus 27:30–32. Grain, wine, oil, fruit and animals: the produce of the land. A man who wanted to keep his tithe of produce and pay its value instead had to add a fifth (27:31).

To the Levites“And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.”Numbers 18:21, 24. The Levites received no tribal land; the tithe was their inheritance instead. They in turn gave “a tenth part of the tithe” to the priests (18:26).

Eaten by the giver“And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose … the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil … And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink … and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household, And the Levite that is within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him.”Deuteronomy 14:22–27. A family that lived far from the sanctuary could sell its tithe, carry the money, and buy the feast when it arrived.

Every third year, the poor“At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates: And the Levite … and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied.”Deuteronomy 14:28–29. The third-year tithe was not carried to the sanctuary at all. It was stored in the giver’s own town for the local poor.

When the third year came round, the worshipper made a solemn declaration before God, and its words show what the tithe was for: “I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me” (Deuteronomy 26:13). The holy portion, “the LORD’s” portion, was given to the poor, and giving it to them was how it was given to God.

Later Jewish readers tried to fit these laws together, and they did not agree on how. The book of Tobit, from about the second century before Christ, has its hero give one tenth to the priests and Levites, spend a second tenth each year at Jerusalem, and give a third “unto them to whom it was meet,” as his grandmother had taught him, “because I was left an orphan by my father” (Tobit 1:7–8). Josephus, writing about AD 93, counts three tithes: one for the Levites, one for the festivals, and a third every third year “to be distributed to those that want; to women also that are widows, and to children that are orphans” (Antiquities IV.8.22, Whiston’s translation). The rabbis of the Mishnah read the same laws as two tithes, with the second tithe going to the poor in the third and sixth years of each seven. All of them agree on two things: there was more than one tithe, and part of it belonged to the poor.

The “first tithe,” the “second tithe” and the “poor tithe”These are the later Jewish names for the three laws above. The first tithe went to the Levites (Numbers 18). The second tithe was eaten by the worshipper’s household at the sanctuary (Deuteronomy 14:22–27). The poor tithe (in Hebrew, ma‘aser ‘ani) was the third-year tithe kept in the towns for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow (14:28–29). Whether the poor tithe was a third tithe on top of the other two, or replaced the second tithe in those years, is exactly where Josephus and the rabbis differ.

Try it: follow one farmer’s harvest through seven years

An Israelite farmer gathers a harvest of 1,000 measures. Pick a reading and a year, and see where his tithes go. Then pick the modern rule and compare.

The figures are the page’s illustration. Only the proportions come from the sources, and the two ancient readings round the rabbis’ arithmetic (the second tithe was a tenth of what remained after the first) to keep the bars legible.

Two more facts complete the picture. First, the law tithed the produce of the land and flocks. It commanded no tithe of a carpenter’s wages, a fisherman’s catch or a merchant’s profit, though nothing stopped such people giving. Second, in the seventh year the land rested: “the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat” (Exodus 23:11). In the year without a harvest, there was nothing to tithe, and what grew of itself belonged first to the poor.

Try it: does the modern rule match the old one?

Six features of the modern rule that ten per cent of income goes to the local church. For each, did the Old Testament tithe have it?

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The objection, at its strongest

“Israel was a farming economy. Crops and flocks were its income. The principle is a tenth of your increase; the form changed from grain to money when the economy did. You are hiding behind the details.”

The answer. If the principle is carried over, it has to be carried over whole. The details are not incidental to the tithe; they are where it went. A tenth that is translated from crops into money but no longer feeds the giver’s household, and no longer goes to the stranger, the fatherless and the widow in his own town, has not kept the principle. It has kept the number and dropped the purpose. The objection, taken seriously, argues for giving to the poor within the tenth, which is the opposite of Position S’s third claim.

The point of Part II

The Old Testament tithe was a tenth of produce, not of wages. It supported the Levites, paid for a feast the giver’s own family ate before God, and every third year was laid up in the towns for the poor. “Ten per cent of income to the church, the poor from what is left over” matches none of these. In the law itself, the poor were inside the tithe, not after it.

Part III · The key text

Malachi 3 in context

And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness … against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.Malachi 3:5

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament, written in the century after the return from exile, when the second temple stood in Jerusalem and Judah was a small province of the Persian empire. Its central passage on the tithe is the one quoted in the teaching under test:

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts.

Malachi 3:8–12.

Try it: read it phrase by phrase

Tap each underlined phrase to see what it meant in Malachi’s day.

Tap any phrase above.

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Malachi’s complaint has a history, and Nehemiah tells it. When the walls were rebuilt, the people swore to bring “the tithes of our ground unto the Levites,” and the Levites in turn to “bring up the tithe of the tithes unto the house of our God, to the chambers, into the treasure house” (Nehemiah 10:37–38). A few years later Nehemiah came back from Persia and found the agreement broken:

And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them: for the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field. Then contended I with the rulers, and said, Why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered them together, and set them in their place. Then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil unto the treasuries.

Nehemiah 13:10–12. In the same chapter Nehemiah found that one of the store-chambers had been emptied and given as lodgings to Tobiah, an enemy of the work, by the priest in charge of it (13:4–9).

So the storehouse was a building: the store-chambers of the temple, filled with grain, wine and oil, from which the Levites, singers and priests were fed. When it was empty, the men who served the temple went back to their farms to eat. That is what “that there may be meat in mine house” means.

“Storehouse”The Hebrew is bêt hā’ôṣār, “the house of the treasury.” The same word, ’ôṣār, is used for the temple treasuries in 1 Kings 7:51 and for the store-chambers King Hezekiah had prepared “in the house of the LORD” to hold the tithes (2 Chronicles 31:11–12). It names a place in Jerusalem. Scripture nowhere uses it, or any equivalent, for a Christian congregation.

Who was robbing whom?

Three things in the text are easy to miss. First, the accusation is aimed at “this whole nation” (3:9), the “sons of Jacob” (3:6), under the covenant made at Sinai, and the book has already turned on its priests: “ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi … ye have not kept my ways” (2:8–9). The priests themselves had offered God blind and lame animals (1:8). Malachi is not a word to donors about their pastors. It is a word to a whole covenant people, clergy first.

Second, the curse is the curse of that covenant. Malachi has already pronounced it on the priests: “I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings” (2:2). Its terms are written in Deuteronomy 28: “Cursed shalt thou be in the city … Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store … the fruit of thy land” (28:16–18), and locusts that consume the crops (28:38). Malachi’s promise of blessing answers it point for point: rain from “the windows of heaven,” the “devourer” rebuked, vines that keep their fruit, and a “delightsome land.” The blessing and the curse are both about one nation’s harvests in one land.

Third, the robbery sits in a chapter about the poor. Malachi 3:5, three verses earlier, lists those against whom God will be “a swift witness”: sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, “and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right.” The widow, the fatherless and the stranger are exactly the people the third-year tithe was for (Part II). A nation that withheld its tithes was not only defrauding the temple. It was defrauding them.

Can the curse be placed on Christians?

Paul quotes the covenant curse directly, and says what has become of it:

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. … Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.

Galatians 3:10, 13. Paul is quoting Deuteronomy 27:26, the closing verse of the curses that lead into Deuteronomy 28.

Paul’s argument in Galatians is about justification, not money, and the page does not pretend otherwise. But his logic is general: whoever rests on the law’s works stands under the law’s curse, and Christ bore that curse for those who believe. A teacher who tells Christians that they are “cursed with a curse” for failing to keep one statute of the Sinai covenant is placing them back under the arrangement Paul says Christ redeemed them from. Paul’s own warning to the Galatians about another statute is pointed: “every man that is circumcised … is a debtor to do the whole law” (5:3). The New Testament never threatens a Christian with a material curse for giving too little. The nearest it comes is a harvest proverb about generosity itself: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6).

Malachi’s “prove me now herewith,” with its windows of heaven, is also the text most often used to promise a material return on giving. That use, and the idea of an account with God that it rests on, is the subject of Dossier 38, Have You Opened a Favor Account? Here it is enough to notice that the promised return was rain, crops and freedom from locusts, in one land, under one covenant.

Try it: what carries over from Malachi?

Eight ways Malachi 3 might be applied to Christians. For each: does it carry over directly, as a principle, or not at all?

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The objection, at its strongest

“You are explaining Malachi away. It is in the Christian Bible. ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable’ (2 Timothy 3:16). If God called withholding the tithe robbery once, his character has not changed: ‘For I am the LORD, I change not’ (Malachi 3:6).”

The answer. The page agrees that Malachi is Scripture and profitable, and the sorting exercise above keeps a good deal of it: that God is to be honoured with the first and best, that those who serve him should not be left to go hungry, and that he will judge those who oppress the poor. What Malachi does not do is name a Christian congregation as the storehouse, or place Christians under the covenant curse. “I change not” is the reason God keeps his covenant with Jacob’s sons (3:6); it is not a statement that every statute of that covenant binds the Church. The same reasoning, applied consistently, would bind Christians to the Sabbath of the seventh day, which Malachi’s contemporary Nehemiah enforced in the same chapter (Nehemiah 13:15–22).

The point of Part III

Malachi’s storehouse was the temple’s store-chambers, which fed the Levites and priests. His accusation was aimed at a whole covenant nation, its priests first, and his curse and blessing were the harvests of Deuteronomy 28. Two verses earlier he names the oppressors of the widow, the fatherless and the stranger. A congregation is not that storehouse, and Christ has redeemed Christians from that curse.

Part IV · The Gospels, and Abraham

What Jesus said about tithing

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.Matthew 23:23

This is the strongest text for the tithe in the New Testament, and the page grants what it plainly says. Jesus did not tell the Pharisees to stop tithing. He told them they ought to have tithed. Three things about the sentence decide what it means for Christians.

Who he was speaking to, and when. The chapter opens with Jesus speaking “to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do” (23:1–3). He was speaking, before the cross, to Jews living under the law of Moses, of which the tithe was a part. Paul says Jesus himself was “made under the law” (Galatians 4:4). In the same way Jesus told a man he had healed of leprosy to “shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded” (Matthew 8:4). No one concludes from that verse that Christians healed of illness must offer the sacrifice of Leviticus 14.

What the sentence is about. The tithe is the small thing in it, the gnat in the next verse: “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel” (23:24). Its subject is what the Pharisees had left undone, “judgment, mercy, and faith,” which Luke gives as “judgment and the love of God” (Luke 11:42). The verse that the teaching under test uses to bind Christians to a tenth is a verse condemning people who were exact about the tenth and careless about mercy.

What Jesus said elsewhere. The only other tither in the Gospels is the Pharisee in the temple, who prayed, “I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.” Jesus said that the tax collector who beat his breast, not the tither, “went down to his house justified” (Luke 18:12–14). The tithe was not the Pharisee’s fault. Trusting in it was.

Try it: the order of the scene

Mark 12 ends with a famous scene: a poor widow puts two mites into the temple treasury. Before you read the chapter in order, guess. What does Jesus say immediately before he sits down opposite the treasury?

Read in order, the scene is framed by two judgements: on the scribes who devour widows’ houses, and on the temple the widow had just given her living to. Commentators read it in two ways. The traditional reading hears praise of the widow’s self-giving, which is how Irenaeus used it about AD 180 (Part VIII). A second reading, argued in a well-known 1982 article by Addison Wright (“The Widow’s Mites: Praise or Lament?”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 44), hears a lament over a religious system that took a poor woman’s last coins. The page does not need to choose. On either reading, Jesus measures a gift by what is left after it, not by its percentage: the widow gave “all her living,” and the rich gave “of their abundance.” And on either reading, the scene that praises the widow begins by condemning those who take from widows in the name of religion.

Corban: a gift to God as a reason to withhold

Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother … But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.

Mark 7:9–13. Korban is the Hebrew word for an offering brought near to God. A son could declare his property dedicated, and then plead the vow against his parents’ need.

The author asked whether “the church comes first, the needy get the leftovers” has the same shape. Set side by side, the two have several features in common, and some differences that matter.

Corban, as Jesus describes it

The gift: Property declared dedicated to God.
The duty it overrides: Supporting one’s parents: “Honour thy father and thy mother.”
The authority for the override: “Your tradition”: a rule of the teachers, not of Moses.
Jesus’ verdict: “Making the word of God of none effect.”

Position S, at its third claim

The gift: A tenth of income declared owed to the congregation.
The duty it puts second: Helping a brother in need: “how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 John 3:17).
The authority for the order: A church rule (Parts V, VIII and IX look for another).
The difference: Corban released a man from the duty altogether. Position S allows giving to the poor above the tenth, and many who hold it are generous beyond it.

Say what you think before reading the page’s view.

Does “the church’s tenth first, the needy from what is left” have the shape of Corban?

Abraham, Jacob and Hebrews 7

The tithe’s defenders are right that Abram gave a tenth before Moses (Argument 1 in Part I). Read whole, the story is unusual. What Abram tithed was the spoil of a battle: Hebrews says he “gave the tenth of the spoils” (7:4). He did it once, so far as the text records. And he kept none of the remaining nine-tenths. He gave it back to the king of Sodom, refusing “a thread even to a shoelatchet,” except what his men had eaten and his allies’ share (Genesis 14:21–24). Jacob’s tenth was a vow he made himself, with a condition attached: “If God will be with me … then … of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee” (Genesis 28:20–22). Neither is commanded, and neither is described as a pattern for others. And being older than Moses does not, by itself, make a practice binding: circumcision is older than Moses too (Genesis 17), and Paul says of it, “if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing” (Galatians 5:2).

Hebrews 7 uses Abram’s tithe to prove something else: that Melchizedek’s priesthood, and so Christ’s, is greater than Levi’s, since Levi “payed tithes in Abraham” (7:9). The “he liveth” of 7:8 is Melchizedek, whom the writer has just described as “without father, without mother … having neither beginning of days, nor end of life” in the record of Genesis (7:3). And the writer’s conclusion runs the other way from Argument 2: “For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law” (7:12); there is “a disannulling of the commandment going before” (7:18). The law he has in view is the law of the Levitical priesthood, and the first thing he said about that priesthood was that its sons “have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law” (7:5). Hebrews nowhere tells its readers to tithe. When it does tell them what offerings to bring, it says: “But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (13:16). To “communicate,” in 1611 English, is to share.

The point of Part IV

Jesus told men under the law that they ought to tithe, in a sentence whose point is the mercy they had left undone. The tithing Pharisee went home unjustified. The widow’s mites are framed by a judgement on those who devour widows’ houses. Abram’s tithe was of spoils, given once, and Hebrews draws from it a change of the law of tithes, not a new command. Its own command is to do good and to share.

Part V · The New Testament

Hunting for the percentage

For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.2 Corinthians 8:12

The New Testament says a great deal about giving. It describes a fund for widows, a famine relief, an international collection, the pay of apostles and elders, and the generosity of whole churches. If it meant Christians to give a fixed tenth, this is where it would say so. The best way to find out is to look.

Try it: find the percentage

Fourteen New Testament passages about giving. Open each one and note three things: who the giving was for, how much was asked, and whether a percentage is named. The tally keeps count.

Passages opened0

For the poor0

For ministers0

Percentages found0

Open a passage to begin.

The first weekly collection

The earliest instruction in Christian history for regular, weekly giving is this:

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem.

1 Corinthians 16:1–3, about AD 54. Romans 15:26 names the purpose: “a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem.”

Every element the teaching under test claims for the tithe is present here: a regular day, a set-aside portion, a proportion to income. But the proportion is “as God hath prospered him,” not a tenth. The purpose is the poor, in another city, not the giver’s own congregation. And each giver is to “lay by him in store,” a phrase whose Greek (par’ heautō, “by himself”) most commentators take to mean at home, kept until Paul came. The first Christian store for weekly giving, if they are right, was in the giver’s own house, and it was for the poor.

Why no percentage?

Paul gives his reasons himself, in the longest passage on giving in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9:

He declines to command it“I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love” (8:8). An apostle who could command chose not to.

The measure is grace, not a rate“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (8:9). The pattern for giving is a person, not a fraction.

The measure is what a person has“It is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not” (8:12). The Macedonians gave “to their power … yea, and beyond their power” (8:3).

The aim is equality, not a levy“For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: But by an equality … As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack” (8:13–15). A flat tenth weighs on the poor man’s bread and barely touches the rich man’s surplus.

It must not be extractedPaul sent the brethren ahead so that the gift would be ready “as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness” (9:5); the Greek pleonexia here means a gift wrung out of someone.

It must be free“Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver” (9:7).

None of this lowers the bar. The Macedonians gave beyond their power, the Jerusalem believers sold lands, and the widow gave all her living. The New Testament’s alternative to the tithe is not less than a tenth. It is a measure that cannot be satisfied by any fixed number: what a person has, what a brother needs, and what Christ gave.

The objection, at its strongest

“The New Testament did not need to repeat the tithe. Every Jewish Christian already tithed; it was assumed. You do not find a command against idolatry in Philemon either.”

The answer. The argument from silence would be stronger if the New Testament were silent about giving. It is not. It addresses giving at length, to Gentile churches that had never tithed, in the very passages where a percentage would naturally appear, and it uses other measures each time: prosperity, ability, need, willingness, equality. And the Jerusalem council, deciding what Gentile believers must keep of the law, listed four things and did not include the tithe (Acts 15:28–29). What Jewish Christians already practised is a fair question. What the apostles bound on Gentiles is answered in the text.

The point of Part V

The New Testament gives fourteen and more passages on giving and names a percentage in none of them. Its first weekly collection was for the poor of another city, “as God hath prospered him.” Paul explains why he will not command a rate: the measure is the grace of Christ, what a person has, and the equality of the brethren. And ministers are to be supported, with no rule that their support comes before the poor.

Part VI · Where the poor stand

Pure religion and the needy

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.James 1:27

The teaching under test has a third claim that is, in practice, the one that matters most to the poor: that giving to them comes only from what is left after the church’s tenth. This Part asks where Scripture actually places the needy, and whether any text puts them after a congregation’s budget.

Begin with how the New Testament defines religion. James does not define it as worship, attendance or giving to a congregation. He defines “pure religion and undefiled” as visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keeping oneself unspotted from the world. John makes love for the needy a test of whether the love of God is present at all: “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:17–18). And in the only scene of the last judgement Jesus describes in detail, the question put to the nations is what they did for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).

The Old Testament says the same in its own idiom: “He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again” (Proverbs 19:17). The person who gives to the poor is not taking something from God’s share. He is lending to God.

When Zacchaeus met Jesus, he did not first pay a tithe to the synagogue. He said, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.” Jesus answered, “This day is salvation come to this house” (Luke 19:8–9).

Try it: where does each text place the needy?

Eight texts. For each, does it put the needy at the centre, put them after the church’s share, or rank neither above the other?

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One text does set an order for giving, and it is worth reading closely because it is the opposite of Position S. Paul tells Timothy how the church’s fund for widows should work: “If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed” (1 Timothy 5:16). The order is the family first, so that the church’s fund is free for the widows who have nobody. And the church’s fund itself is a fund for the poor. Paul adds, about the family’s duty: “if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (5:8). The only priority rule in the New Testament’s giving puts the needy in one’s own house before the church’s purse.

Made up by this page for illustration · quoted from no one

A single mother in the congregation earns a modest wage. Her elderly neighbour, a widow with no family, has had her heating cut off in January. The mother has enough this month for her tithe or for the neighbour’s bill, not both. Under Position S, her first duty is the tithe; the neighbour may be helped only from anything above it. Read the texts in this Part and ask which of them she would be disobeying if she paid the bill.

The objection, at its strongest

“You are setting up a false choice. The church is how most Christians help the poor. Our congregation runs a food bank and a benevolence fund. Giving to the church is giving to the poor, and it is better organised than giving to whoever knocks at the door.”

The answer. Where that is true, the page has no quarrel with it, and Part VIII will show that the early Church did most of its relief exactly this way, through a common fund. But notice what the objection concedes. It defends giving through the church by pointing to what the church spends on the poor. That is Position G’s argument, not Position S’s. Position S says the tenth is owed to the congregation whatever the congregation does with it, and that the poor come from what is left. If a church’s case for the tithe is its care for the poor, it has already agreed that the poor are not at the back of the line.

The point of Part VI

Scripture defines pure religion by care for the fatherless and widows, makes love for a needy brother a test of the love of God, and judges the nations by what they did for the least. No text tells a Christian to meet the church’s share first. The only priority rule for giving in the New Testament puts one’s own needy family first, so that the church can help those who have no one.

Part VII · Who handles the money

Money, ministers and accountability

Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.2 Corinthians 8:21

The case for the tithe rests partly on Paul (Arguments 4 and 5 in Part I), and Paul does teach that ministers should be paid. He gives five reasons in a row: a soldier does not serve at his own expense, a man who plants a vineyard eats of it, a shepherd drinks the milk of his flock, the law says “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn,” and those who serve at the altar share in the altar (1 Corinthians 9:7–13). Then: “Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel” (9:14). He tells Timothy that elders who labour in the word are “worthy of double honour,” for “The labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:17–18). And he tells the Galatians to share “in all good things” with their teachers (6:6).

Read that way, Argument 4 proves a great deal: ministers have a right to a living. What it does not prove is the tithe. The temple is one of five comparisons, alongside soldiers, farmers and shepherds; “even so” carries over the principle the five share, that a worker lives from his work, not the temple’s particular system of payment. And Galatians 6:6, Argument 5, is followed three verses later by the wider duty it belongs to: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (6:10).

Then there is what Paul did with his own right. Having argued for it at length, he wrote: “Nevertheless we have not used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ … But I have used none of these things” (1 Corinthians 9:12, 15). He worked as a tentmaker so as to make “the gospel of Christ without charge” (9:18). To the elders of Ephesus he said, “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak” (Acts 20:33–35). The money he earned with his hands was for the weak, as well as for himself.

Paul’s collection, audited

When Paul handled money for others, he arranged things so that he could not be suspected of taking any of it. The churches chose their own delegates to carry their gifts (1 Corinthians 16:3). A brother “chosen of the churches” travelled with Paul, and Paul explained why: “Avoiding this, that no man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us: Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men” (2 Corinthians 8:19–21). The requirement for elders follows the same line: “not greedy of filthy lucre … not covetous” (1 Timothy 3:3); to feed the flock “not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage” (1 Peter 5:2–3). The giver’s side of this accountability, whether he is responsible for what happens to money once given, is the subject of Dossier 08, Just Give. Don’t Ask Questions.

The author asked whether a mandatory tithe to the home church is consistent with this. The question is not whether churches that teach the tithe are honest; most are. It is structural. A rule that the tenth is owed to God, that the local congregation is where God collects it, and that withholding it is robbery, removes the giver’s freedom to decide where his gift does most good, and so removes the most natural check on how a congregation spends. Paul’s collection worked the other way: the purpose was stated in advance, the givers chose who carried it, and the apostle went out of his way to be seen to take nothing.

Try it: Paul’s questions for any church fund

Think of a fund you give to, at church or anywhere else, and answer seven questions drawn from how Paul handled the collection. The page records nothing.

The point of Part VII

Ministers have a right to a living; Paul argued for it with five comparisons, of which the temple was one. That proves pay, not a percentage. Paul then refused his own right so as to hinder no one, worked to support the weak, and had the collection carried by delegates the churches chose, “providing for honest things … in the sight of men.” A rule that removes the giver’s choice also removes the check Paul built in.

Part VIII · The historic Church

Twenty centuries of giving

On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary.Tertullian, Apology 39, AD 197 (trans. S. Thelwall, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3)

The author asked what the apostles and the early Church actually taught and practised, and whether any tradition taught that the poor are to be helped only from what is left after the tithe. The evidence falls into four kinds, and the timeline below lets you filter by them: gifts described as freely given; Fathers who urged a tithe; laws that compelled one; and arrangements that set aside a share for the poor.

The first three centuries

The earliest Christian church manual outside the New Testament, the Didache, written somewhere between the late first and early second century, has a chapter on supporting the Church’s ministers. It mentions no tithe. It speaks of first fruits:

Every firstfruit then of the produce of the wine-vat and of the threshing-floor, of thy oxen and of thy sheep, thou shalt take and give as the firstfruit to the prophets; for they are your chief-priests. But if ye have not a prophet, give them to the poor. … yea and of money and raiment and every possession take the firstfruit, as shall seem good to thee, and give according to the commandment.

Didache 13.3–4, 7 (trans. J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1891).

Notice two things. The amount is “as shall seem good to thee.” And when there is no minister to receive it, the gift goes straight to the poor; it does not wait in a fund for the next one. About fifty years later, Justin Martyr described to the Roman emperor what Christians did on Sundays:

And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.

Justin Martyr, First Apology 67, about AD 155 (trans. M. Dods and G. Reith, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1).

The Sunday collection, in the earliest description we have of one, was given by those “well to do, and willing,” in whatever amount each thought fit, and Justin lists only one use for it: everyone in need. Tertullian, writing in Carthage in 197, says the same with more heat. The church’s chest “is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price.” The monthly gift is voluntary, and it is not spent “on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck,” and prisoners in the mines and on the islands. “It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble,” he adds, “that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another” (Apology 39).

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons about 180, set the Christian practice against the Jewish tithe on purpose. Christ, he wrote, “instead of the law enjoining the giving of tithes,” told his disciples “to share all our possessions with the poor” (Against Heresies IV.13.3). And again: the Jews “had indeed the tithes of their goods consecrated to Him, but those who have received liberty set aside all their possessions for the Lord’s purposes, bestowing joyfully and freely not the less valuable portions of their property,” like “that poor widow” who “cast all her living into the treasury of God” (IV.18.2, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1).

“Church Fathers”The Fathers are the Christian writers of roughly the first eight centuries whose works the Church has treated as authoritative witnesses to its faith and practice: bishops such as Irenaeus, Cyprian and Augustine, and teachers such as Justin and Tertullian. Their witness is weighed collectively. A single Father is a witness to what one man taught; agreement across regions and centuries is a witness to what the Church taught.

The Fathers who urged the tithe

The case for the tithe is right that several Fathers urged it (Argument 7 in Part I). What matters is how they argued, and where they sent it.

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, writing in 251, looks back to the Jerusalem church in which believers sold houses and lands “to be distributed for the use of the poor,” and laments: “But now we do not even give the tenths from our patrimony; and while our Lord bids us sell, we rather buy and increase our store” (On the Unity of the Church 26, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5). For Cyprian the tenth is the floor Christians had fallen below, and the standard he holds up is giving everything to the poor.

The Apostolic Constitutions, a church order compiled in Syria about 380, is the strongest patristic witness for the tithe. It tells the bishop to “use those tenths and first-fruits, which are given according to the command of God, as a man of God,” and to dispense the free-will offerings “to the orphans, the widows, the afflicted, and strangers in distress” (II.25). But in Book VII it also says, giving the rule in the form of a commandment: “You shall give the tenth of your increase to the orphan, and to the widow, and to the poor, and to the stranger” (VII.29, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 7). The early document most often cited for the tithe sends the tithe to the poor.

Jerome, in his commentary on Malachi (about 406), applies the tithe to Christians and argues that, since the Gospel calls disciples to sell all and give to the poor, Christians who will not do that should at least keep the Jewish measure. The page could not verify a published English translation of the passage, so it gives his argument in summary rather than in his words.

Augustine, preaching on Psalm 147, urges his hearers to set aside a fixed portion of their income for alms: “a tenth if you choose, though that is but little. For it is said that the Pharisees gave a tenth.” Christ said our righteousness must exceed theirs; so, he tells his congregation, “you give not even a thousandth” (Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 147 in the Latin numbering, §13, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series 1 vol. 8). The tenth is his minimum, “but little,” and the subject of the sermon is alms.

Every one of these writers urges the tithe as the least a Christian should do, in a Church whose common fund was spent largely on the poor, and argues from the Gospel’s demand to give everything. None of them teaches that the poor come after it.

A quarter for the poor

As the Church grew, its income came to be divided by rule. By the fifth century, popes Simplicius (475) and Gelasius (494) cite as traditional a division of all church revenues into four parts. The clearest text a reader can check is Pope Gregory the Great’s answer to Augustine of Canterbury in 601, preserved by Bede:

It is the custom of the Apostolic See to prescribe rules to bishops newly ordained, that all emoluments which accrue, are to be divided into four portions; one for the bishop and his family, because of hospitality and entertainments; another for the clergy; a third for the poor; and the fourth for the repair of churches.

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People I.27, completed 731 (trans. J. A. Giles).

A quarter of everything, by standing rule, before any of it was spent on anything else. Under the fourfold division the poor were not paid from a surplus. They had a fixed share of the church’s whole income, equal to the clergy’s and the bishop’s.

The tithe becomes law

The first church laws to make the tithe compulsory come from Gaul. The bishops meeting at Tours in 567 urged it, and the Council of Mâcon in 585 ordered “that the whole people bring in the church tithes” and threatened those who stubbornly refused with being cut off from the Church. Even this canon, the founding text of the compulsory tithe, gives its purpose: the priests are to spend the tithes “either on the use of the poor or on the redemption of captives” (canon 5, Latin text in H. W. Clarke, A History of Tithes, 2nd ed. 1894; the page’s translation; some historians, beginning with John Selden in 1618, have doubted the canon’s authenticity). Charlemagne’s Capitulary of Herstal (779) then made tithe-paying obligatory throughout the Frankish kingdom, enforced by the state, with part of it for the relief of the poor.

From there the tithe spread across Western Christendom as a church tax on produce, collected in kind into tithe barns, enforced by church courts and later by the crown. In England it was recognised in law before the Norman Conquest and survived the Reformation. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 converted it into a money rent-charge on land; the Tithe Act of 1936 replaced the rent-charge with annuities paid to the state; and the Finance Act of 1977 extinguished the last of them. For roughly twelve centuries in the West, then, the tithe was a compulsory tax on land, not a free-will gift from wages, and it was abolished by Parliament, not by theologians.

The Reformation

The Reformers inherited the tithe as a tax, and they argued about it as one. In the German Peasants’ War of 1525, the Twelve Articles accepted the “large tithe” of grain, on condition that the community appoint its own collector who would give the pastor “a decent and sufficient maintenance for him and his,” and “What remains over shall be given to the poor of the place” (Article 2). The peasants refused the small tithe on livestock outright, as a human invention. Their proposal, rejected and crushed, is the opposite of Position S: the tithe first supports the pastor, and the rest of the tithe itself goes to the poor.

Luther, preaching the same year, put the law of Moses in its place for Christians: “Moses is dead. His rule ended when Christ came.” “We will regard Moses as a teacher, but we will not regard him as our lawgiver.” Yet in the same sermon he called tithing “a very fine rule, because with the giving of the tenth all other taxes would be eliminated,” and explained why: under it, “when I raise much, I give much; and when little, I give little” (How Christians Should Regard Moses, 1525, Luther’s Works vol. 35). Luther valued the tithe as a fair tax that a Christian prince was free to borrow, not as a command of God binding on Christians.

Two years earlier, Luther had written a preface for the town of Leisnig, which had adopted the Reformation and drawn up an Ordinance of a Common Chest (1523). All the parish’s income, its endowments, gifts and dues, went into one chest, administered by ten elected directors and audited openly. From the one chest came the pastor’s salary, the schoolmaster’s and the sexton’s, the upkeep of the buildings, and the relief of the poor, orphans, the sick and the aged (Luther’s Works vol. 45). Pastor and poor were paid from the same fund, under the same audit, as one duty.

Try it: the timeline, filtered

Twenty witnesses from the first to the twenty-first century. Filter them by kind. Then look at the question at the foot of each entry.

The objection, at its strongest

“So the Church did tithe, for more than a thousand years, and the Fathers urged it. You have just proved that the tithe is the historic practice of Christianity.”

The answer. The page grants it: the tithe is part of the Church’s history, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. But look at what the history contains. The first three centuries give freely and name no fraction. The Fathers who urge a tenth call it a minimum, “but little,” and send much of it to the poor. When the tithe became law, the same law assigned a share of it to the poor and the captive. The fourfold division gave the poor a quarter. The Reformers reorganised it into a common chest for pastor and poor alike. A Christian who appeals to the historic tithe is appealing to a practice in which the poor were inside the tithe. None of it supports Position S’s third claim.

The point of Part VIII

The early Church gave freely and spent first on the poor. The Fathers who urged a tenth treated it as the least a Christian could do, and some sent it to the poor. The compulsory tithe began in sixth-century Gaul and lasted in England until 1977, as a tax that itself provided for the poor. The Reformers paid pastors and the poor from one chest. No tradition here teaches that the poor are helped only from what is left after the tithe.

Part IX · The modern rule

Where “storehouse tithing” came from

… the modern storehouse, the Church.“Layman,” introduction to E. B. Stewart, The Tithe (Chicago, 1903)

If the rule that the whole tenth belongs to the local congregation is not in the New Testament or the early Church, it came from somewhere. The evidence points to American Protestantism in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

In the United States there was no tithe law to abolish, and churches depended on pew rents, subscriptions and fund-raising. From 1876 a Chicago businessman, Thomas Kane, began publishing and distributing free tithing tracts under the name “Layman.” By 1903 he could write that pastors had ordered his literature “in quantities aggregating many millions during the last 27 years,” and in an introduction to a book on the tithe he called the Church “the modern storehouse.” The Christian Endeavor youth movement enlisted tithers in a “Tenth Legion,” which, the same book reports, had been signed by more than 25,000 young people. Tithing conferences were held. In 1922 a book appeared under the title Storehouse Tithing (J. A. Hensey, New York: Revell). Over the twentieth century the phrase became the name of a denominational policy.

“Gross” and “net”Arguments over whether the tenth is owed on gross income (before tax) or net income (after tax) belong to the modern rule. The law of Moses tithed produce and knew no income tax; the New Testament names no fraction at all. Nothing in Scripture settles the question, because Scripture never asks it.

Try it: predict four church statements

Here are four churches whose official documents speak about giving. Before you reveal their words, predict what each says on three questions. The documents are quoted below the table, word for word, from the edition named.

Document	Names a tenth?	Local church named as storehouse?	Puts it before all other giving?

Make your predictions, then reveal.

Storehouse tithing is a scriptural and practical performance of faithfully and regularly placing the tithe into that church to which the member belongs. Therefore, the financing of the church shall be based on the plan of storehouse tithing, and the local Church of the Nazarene shall be regarded by all of its people as the storehouse. All who are a part of the Church of the Nazarene are urged to contribute faithfully one-tenth of all their increase as a minimum financial obligation to the Lord and freewill offerings in addition as God has prospered them for the support of the whole church, local, district, educational, and general. The tithe, provided to the local Church of the Nazarene, shall be considered a priority over all other giving opportunities which God may lay upon the hearts of His faithful stewards, in support of the whole church.
Manual of the Church of the Nazarene, ¶32.1, “Storehouse Tithing” (2013–2017 edition; quoted again as current by the denomination in April 2019).

We acknowledge God’s ownership by faithful service to Him and our fellow human beings, and by returning tithe and giving offerings for the proclamation of His gospel and the support and growth of His church.
Seventh-day Adventist Church, Fundamental Beliefs, No. 21, “Stewardship” (as published at adventist.org). The proof texts include Malachi 3:8–12 and Matthew 23:23.

They are therefore under obligation to serve Him with their time, talents, and material possessions; and should recognize all these as entrusted to them to use for the glory of God and for helping others. According to the Scriptures, Christians should contribute of their means cheerfully, regularly, systematically, proportionately, and liberally for the advancement of the Redeemer’s cause on earth.
Southern Baptist Convention, The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article XIII, “Stewardship.” The article names no percentage; its list of proof texts includes Malachi 3:8–12.

The faithful also have the duty of providing for the material needs of the Church, each according to his abilities.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2043 (2nd ed., 1997). Canon law defines those needs as “what is necessary for divine worship, for the works of the apostolate and of charity, and for the decent support of ministers,” and adds that the faithful “are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources” (Code of Canon Law, 1983, canon 222).

Of the four, only the first teaches all three claims of Position S in so many words: a tenth as a minimum obligation, the local congregation as “the storehouse,” and the tithe as “a priority over all other giving opportunities.” It should be read fairly: it speaks of “the support of the whole church,” and the same denomination maintains its own relief and development work. The page quotes it because it is a clear published statement of the rule under test, not because the denomination is unusual in practising it; the rule is preached in many independent churches that publish nothing. The Southern Baptist confession, written for the largest Protestant body in the United States, says “proportionately” and stops. The Catholic Catechism says “according to his abilities,” and Catholic canon law puts the works of charity among the Church’s needs and the poor among every Christian’s direct duties.

The point of Part IX

“Storehouse tithing” is a modern American rule, promoted from the 1870s and named in the twentieth century. At least one denomination writes it into its manual today, with the local church as “the storehouse” and the tithe as “a priority over all other giving.” Other large traditions set no percentage at all, and the Catholic Church binds its members to help the poor “from their own resources.”

Part X · Drawing it together

A picture, described not prescribed

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.2 Corinthians 8:9

The author asked the page to draw together what the New Testament and the historic Church taught, and to describe it rather than prescribe it, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions about what to give and where. Here is the picture as the sources paint it.

It begins with graceGiving answers something already given. Paul does not begin with a rule but with Christ, who became poor (2 Corinthians 8:9), and ends with thanks: “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (9:15).

It is regular“Upon the first day of the week” (1 Corinthians 16:2). Justin’s church collected every Sunday; Tertullian’s once a month.

It is proportional“As God hath prospered him” (16:2); “according to that a man hath” (2 Corinthians 8:12); “every man according to his ability” (Acts 11:29). More for the one who has more.

It is generousThe Macedonians gave “beyond their power” (8:3). The Fathers called a tenth “but little.” The New Testament’s measure is higher than the tithe, not lower.

It is cheerful and uncompelled“Not grudgingly, or of necessity” (9:7). “There is no compulsion; all is voluntary” (Tertullian).

It supports those who teach“The labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Timothy 5:18). A congregation that leaves its ministers to go back to their fields has forsaken the house of God (Nehemiah 13:10–11).

It cares for the poor, near and farThe widows of Acts 6, the famine of Acts 11, the saints at Jerusalem, “the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow” within one’s own gates. Not after the rest; as part of it.

It is handled in the openDelegates chosen by the givers, “providing for honest things … in the sight of men” (2 Corinthians 8:21).

That picture contains no percentage, so it cannot be turned into a rule. A Christian who reads it and decides to give a tenth to his congregation, or a fifth, or half his goods to the poor like Zacchaeus, is free to do so. What the picture does not permit is any rule, however generous, that tells him the needy must wait until the congregation’s share is paid.

Try it: test one sentence against every source

Here is the third claim of Position S, as a single sentence: “Only giving above ten per cent may go to the needy.” Twenty passages and sources from this page. For each, decide whether it supports the sentence, tells against it, or does not address it. Then see the page’s reading.

Supports it0

Tells against it0

Does not address it0

These are your answers. The page’s reading appears under each item once you choose.

0 of 20 tested

The point of Part X

The New Testament and the early Church describe giving that begins with grace and is regular, proportional, generous, cheerful, uncompelled, shared between teachers and the poor, and handled openly. It names no fraction, so it can be lived at a tenth or at much more. Tested against the sources, the sentence “only giving above ten per cent may go to the needy” finds support in one modern manual.

Interactive · an objection to answer yourself

Answer it before you read the answer

Write your own answer first, using what you have read so far. Then compare it with the page’s. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.

The objection (composed, in the words of a church treasurer who loves her congregation): “If every member gave wherever he felt led, this church would close within a year. Our pastor has a family. The lights and the roof cost money. We run a food bank out of this building. ‘Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse’ is plain English. Are you telling people to stop supporting their church?”

Part XI · The limits

What the narrow point proves

Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.2 Corinthians 9:7

The argument of this page is narrow, and it is easy to claim too much for it. It does not show that tithing is wrong, or that a church that teaches it is greedy or dishonest. Many congregations that teach the tithe are generous to the poor, and many tithers give far beyond the tenth. Nothing on this page reads anyone’s motives or assesses any church’s finances.

What it tests is three claims: that a tenth binds Christians, that it belongs to the local congregation as the storehouse, and that the poor come from what is left. On those claims the evidence runs one way.

What it does not show

That tithing is wrong, or that a Christian should give less than a tenth.
That Christians need not support their congregation and its ministers.
That any particular church, or any denomination quoted, is dishonest or neglects the poor.
That giving through a church is a worse way to help the poor than giving directly.
That the Fathers never urged the tithe, or that the Church never made it law.

What it does show

That the New Testament names no percentage for Christian giving, and declines to command one.
That Scripture never names a congregation as Malachi’s storehouse.
That the Old Testament tithe itself was partly for the poor, and the earliest Christian collections chiefly so.
That no biblical text ranks the poor after a church’s share, and no tradition the page could find did so before the modern storehouse rule.

Try it: does the argument prove this?

Eight claims. Does the argument of this page establish each one, or not?

0 of 8 sorted

Your verdict

Two questions. Nothing is recorded.

The point of Part XI

The page does not argue against tithing, or against supporting one’s church. It shows that the three claims of the storehouse rule, a binding tenth, the congregation as storehouse, and the poor from the remainder, have no warrant in the New Testament, and that the third has none in any century of the Church the page could find before the modern rule itself.

One closing observation, offered as opinionThe title of this page is a question God asked Israel through Malachi, and I have tried to take it seriously rather than explain it away. Read in its chapter, it is a question about a whole nation that had let the temple go hungry and pushed the widow, the orphan and the stranger aside. I think it still has a sharp edge for Christians, but not the one it is usually given. A church can be robbed of its due when its members give nothing, and a congregation that lets its ministers go back to their fields has done something Nehemiah would recognise. But the poor can be robbed too, by a rule that makes them wait. The early Church’s answer to Malachi was not a percentage. It was a Sunday collection given by the willing, and spent on everyone in need. You may weigh the evidence differently, and this page has tried to give you everything you need to do so.

Part XII

Your answers, revisited

Here are the ten questions you answered before reading, with what the sources say, followed by how convinced you were by each argument in Part I and what the page found when it tested it. If you skipped the quiz, go back to the questions, lock in your answers, and return.

Answer the questions at the top of the page and lock them in; your results appear here.

Weigh the eight arguments in Part I; your answers appear here beside the page’s findings.

Part XIII

Check it yourself

Fifteen items. Nearly everything here is free and online. If you read only three, read the first three. If you do only one thing, do the last.

1. Deuteronomy 14:22–29 and 26:12–15. Read these first. Ten minutes. Note every person who eats the tithe, and where.
2. Malachi 1–3 and Nehemiah 13. Read these first. Twenty minutes. Read the whole of Malachi, not only chapter 3; note whom each accusation is aimed at. Then read what Nehemiah found in the store-chambers.
3. 2 Corinthians 8–9. Read these first. Fifteen minutes. Mark every measure Paul gives for how much to give, and every reason he gives for not commanding.
4. On the tithe in the law: Genesis 14:17–24; 28:20–22; Leviticus 27:30–33; Numbers 18:21–32; Deuteronomy 12:5–19; Exodus 23:10–11; 2 Chronicles 31:4–12; Nehemiah 10:35–39.
5. On Jesus and the tithe: Matthew 23:1–28; Luke 11:37–44; 18:9–14; Mark 7:1–13; 12:38–13:2; Hebrews 7; 13:16.
6. On giving and the poor in the New Testament: Acts 2:41–47; 4:32–5:11; 6:1–7; 11:27–30; Romans 15:25–28; 1 Corinthians 9; 16:1–4; Galatians 2:10; 6:6–10; 1 Timothy 5:3–18; 6:17–19; James 1:27–2:17; 1 John 3:16–18; Matthew 25:31–46; Luke 19:1–10.
7. The Didache, chapter 13, and Justin Martyr, First Apology 67. Both short, both free at New Advent and Early Christian Writings.
8. Tertullian, Apology 39, and Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.13 and IV.18. Free at New Advent.
9. Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 26; Apostolic Constitutions II.25 and VII.29; Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 147 (Latin numbering), §13. Free at New Advent. Read each for what the tenth is compared to, and where it goes.
10. Bede, Ecclesiastical History I.27, Gregory’s first answer to Augustine of Canterbury, on the four portions.
11. Henry William Clarke, A History of Tithes (2nd ed., 1894), free at Project Gutenberg, for the Council of Mâcon and the medieval law; and on the English tithe, the Tithe Act 1936 and the Finance Act 1977.
12. Luther, How Christians Should Regard Moses (1525), Luther’s Works vol. 35, and the Ordinance of a Common Chest for Leisnig (1523), vol. 45. The Twelve Articles (1525), Article 2.
13. E. B. Stewart, The Tithe (Chicago, 1903), free at Project Gutenberg, for the American tithing campaign in its own words; and the four church documents quoted in Part IX, each free on its church’s website.
14. Earlier dossiers: 08 (the giver’s responsibility once he has given), 38 (the prosperity gospel as an account with God), 46 (what Acts 5 does and does not say about giving), 49 (what a church owes the people it pays).
15. One list. Do this one. Write down everything you gave last year, and to whom. Then read Deuteronomy 14:28–29, Galatians 2:10 and Justin’s description of the Sunday collection, and ask where the stranger, the fatherless and the widow appear on your list. Nobody else needs to see it.

No living individual is named on this page as an example of anything, and no congregation is identified. Denominations are quoted only from their own published documents, word for word, and quoting a document is not a judgement on any congregation that uses it. Every remark attributed to a pastor, treasurer or church member is composed for illustration and quoted from no one. This page does not tell anyone how much to give or where, does not argue against tithing, and does not judge any person’s generosity, sincerity or standing before God.

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